A mere figment
by ravenousbee
Summary: He's hallucinating, it's one significant detail about his mind everyone's come to notice. His partner resembles an angel, the bottle in his pockets weighs heavier than ever, and Neil Watts loses himself in his mess of a mind for a few minutes.


It's just another case-over.  
For Eva, that was a simple task. For Neil, another case is just another unwanted vacation through the lane of his conflicted memories.  
Perhaps it was just that of a fact, any patient they face, has been through a significant fraction of Neil's life, and all he does during the process of regenerating life, leaping from a branch to another, is staying quiet and later drowning himself in whatever coffee and pills he's left with.  
Truth to be told, it wasn't that of a struggle. A moment of despair, a lifetime of frustration and regrets. And thus his throwback would be over.  
Eva requests and they stay for the sunset. It's in 30 minutes, _what could happen in a time-span of 30 minutes?_  
So they make their way through the vast garden of their patient, finding themselves at a cliff-side. "Wow, where we go, Acrophobia won't let me go?"  
"…You're not even rhyming, Watts."  
A quiet laugh later, he takes in the scenery around them.  
Beneath them sits the dark ocean. He can't quite guess which ocean it is, but he likes to think it's the Atlantic. Filled with mysteries and wonders, filled with death and corpses.  
A log awaits Eva's elegant figure, and Neil is too slow to grab a seat next to her. The sky's a mix of blue and pink pastels, and the sun isn't quite blinding as her noon. The poor orb of flames is dying yet another day for the moon to breathe the midnight air.  
It seems as if it isn't Eva sitting next to him anymore. It's… someone different.  
He's hallucinating, he quietly states.  
Her hair shines golden. Perhaps, he's truly hallucinating, perhaps it's the pills; but he's witnessing an angel.  
Not his, he remembers.  
Whatever is his, other than a cyan bottle of pills?  
She's an angel, a portrait of one to state the least, wings cut down to keep her from ascending to the seven realms above; drowning in the lethal sunlight, iris embracing each and every lonely ray of sunshine, hair freely running along the wind, a battle of the dark of her skin and the bright of a red sun..  
He's mind's going off-rail, he comprehends. A train-wreck, just in reverse.  
Stop it, he objects. This isn't a machine nor is it a wish to be preserved.  
"Get it together." Eva whispers, looking at her own reflection I his glasses.  
He defends in return, with whatever childish retort he can come up with. With whatever distraction he can come up with. "…You get it together!"  
The reply does as the code suggests. Initiates a silence, the element he's come to love; not more than euphoria, he remembers.  
A blight flashes. In contrast to the sun, it's quite a waste of time and hurt.  
Eva doesn't notice. She almost never does. He's grateful to it, nevertheless, but maybe at times he would've preferred sharing with her, his endless corridor of problems.  
Hands self-consciously move to his pockets, fishing out the infamous bottle. It's as blue as ever.  
Not the blue he'd rather see every moment of the hurt.  
Not the blue he'd know will stop the pain.  
The angel's losing air in the vacuum of a lost sunset, so he manages to sneak out a handful of white reliefs without her noticing. Turning his head away from the artwork on the log, a hand is raised to his mouth, letting the bitter taste slide down his sore throat.  
It's gotten worse nowadays, he makes a note.  
He can't live without them, he reminds.  
It's something he can't avoid, his mind retorts. If not for the white stoics, he would've been gone by now. Deafened by the sound of the battle of his mind and heart, blinded by the unshed tears blocking his eyes.  
And it's just another fact Neil Watts can't avoid on any day. He's used to them. He's used to their relief. He's used to lose himself in the release of dopamine that they create.  
 _He's just addicted to them, he objects._  
But it isn't an issue if his addiction's working up. It's euphoria, is it not?  
Every pill shots him up majestically, opening his eyes and he can't stop drowning himself in the white powder of the pills. Something clings onto him, something claws at him. Pull him down to the deep oceans of Atlantic and traps him. Nonexistent vines wrapping themselves around him, and he takes a breath in the deepest part of the ocean, feeling the dopamine escaping his brain.  
…It's not actually an ocean, his mind retorts; it's a mere figment of his imagination. A mere figment of his addiction. A contamination of the aggression.  
A mere memory, his partner might state coldly, staring off into the sunset. Ignoring the beautiful sky in front of them both, he turns a head at her. The rays of sunshine hold her face, threatening to take her away from him at any moment.  
"A memory?" he finds himself muttering, losing himself back in the painful depths of the Atlantic.  
Alone.  
Dark.  
Quiet.  
He's almost counting moments for the statics to appear. Who knows, the pills might've finally built a barrier between him and the world outside.  
Something appears.  
Is it static?  
It's most likely not, he can spot some colors in it's palette.  
Is it the Sigmund Corp?  
Perhaps it's himself, coming from an unreachable future. Perhaps it's just another Neil. Just another Neil, muttering frustrated words, about however his machine has failed.  
About whoever _he_ has failed.  
It's nothing he had guessed it is. It's rather… alien.  
It looks like a hand. Takes the shape of a hand. A Feminine hand. _Eva's_ , hand.  
It's reaching out. How did she reach the bottom of the ocean? How did she even know he was there?  
How could he ignore her sympathy when it's memories away from him?  
Eva pulls him back. Tugs on him, doesn't let go, and uses all force to drag him out of the dark prison he was stuck in.  
He finds himself back in the world he didn't deserve. There's a bottle pills in his pockets.  
A sunrise burning through the one-way mirrors on his face, and battling the emerald of his iris.  
At his left sits the guardian angel. Her hair's on her shoulders, dark eyes looking at him with concern.  
"Neil…?"  
He can't bring himself to respond. He's a good actor, he's supposed to be cheerily responding, distracting all unnecessary concerns.  
But his skills lay low at the moment for whatever reason, and he silently observes the masterpiece f the Sun and the Eve.  
"…Have I lost you?"  
A bitter chuckle of acknowledgment escapes his lips, and he chooses to remove his glasses, blurring the portrait in front of him. Sun burns through his pupils, now bare to the world outside, like an open book ready to be discovered and embraced.  
He can't look at her when he speaks once again. He can't handle the hurt, the child inside is too afraid of the pain. He can't be there to watch the betrayal in her eyes.  
A deep inhale, and he produces her name with his lips with the kindest his mind can manage.  
"…Never, Rosalene, never."


End file.
